wanealy

Iraq is a corporate success story

Those of us who are fighting this war cannot forget that from the corporate perspective, Iraq has been triumph.  What I mean is, it is a cash cow for major Multinational corporations.  Companies like Haliburton, and Bechtel are making record profits over this carnage.  Check out the documentary Iraq for Sale for a brief glimpse of the incredible amount of profiteering happening right now.  In fact, it's not just the arms industry that is booming.  Services that used to be provided by public entities are now being performed by corporations, including even the fighting itself (Blackwater, the mercenary company owned by Erik Prince, is enjoying a tremendous increase in profits).

The reason this is important is that if you simply think of Iraq as a humanitarian and foreign policy disaster (which it is) , you will  fail to understand why elite policy makers are still salivating over Iran.  In fact, one of John Mccain's major policy advisers is a man named  Norman Podhoretz, a highly influential neoconservative who is absolutely dedicated to getting the US to go to war with Iran, despite the fact that even the military leadership thinks this is foolish.

Do not doubt the willingness of some of these leaders to throw us into an additional conflict.  They have no qualms about starting what could be the beginning of World War 3, if it means they will be able to make money.  Even Obama was pressured into saying tough words about Iran in order to appease hawkish policy makers.

Arm yourself with information: I often start my day by going to Commondreams, a terrific alternative media site.  It is but one of many more internet sources that cuts through the propaganda being thrown our way in order to get at the truth.  I also recommend reading Naomi Klein's terrific new book The Shock Doctrine which traces the profit motive behind the US' brutal foreign policy over the past half century.  Indeed, Iraq is just the most recent conflict.  There have been many more, and there WILL be more if we don't exercise our rights and pressure these politicians, and even SHAME them into doing the right thing if we must.

Most importantly: join a local group, write letters to your congressmen and women, letters to the editors, tell your friends about what you've read, show a documentary.  Whatever it is: Do something.  There is a batlle going on for the very soul of this country, and we CAN win it, but we need to be persistent and do our part.  My motto is, I may not be able to do it all, but I sure can do SOMETHING. 

My article on my two heroes here.

Hell is one of the most destructive, neurosis-inducing concepts to come out of the human mind.  A place of infinite suffering, it turns God into the Ultimate Sadist who gets excited at the prospect of inflicting unending pain on us.

I have found that one must love people in a fearless manner, one that casts out all consideration of eternal punishment.  One of my favorite spiritual stories illustrates what I am trying to get at.  I am paraphrasing horribly here, so bear with me:

" The Master felt that his disciple was ready.  He told him: "You are ready to hear the mantra that leads to Eternal Life.  I will whisper it to you now.  The only warning is that you must never reveal it to anyone, otherwise, your soul will be lost forever in the torments of Hell."  The Master proceeded to give the Disciple the mantra.  As soon as the Disciple heard it, he went to the most public place possible and shouted the mantra to as many people as he could.  The Master then knew that his Disciple had reached Ultimate Awareness."

Moral of the story: you must love others so much that you are unconcerned about your own safety.  That is the path to "Salvation."

Art allows us to look at ourselves unabashedly, with no fear and no shame. The purpose of the Artist is to make him /herself vulnerable, so that others may feel that they are allowed to be vulnerable.  

A lot of my friends wonder why I, as a straight Black male, support Gay Rights.  The answer is simple.  Why would gay marriage and relationships threaten me?  As a secure man, I am more than comfortable with people living their lives however they feel like.  I believe that sexual orientation is innate, and gay people have as little choice in the matter than we heterosexuals do. 

I learned this lesson while living in an intentional community with a good friend of mine who is gay.  Having grown up Catholic, (like me), he hated his own gay nature.  If there were ever a man who would have cut out his own sexual nature in order to "please God", it was him.  Furthermore, he was an exceptional human being.: compassionate, kind, patient, charitable, etc...To reduce this incredible man to his sexual orientation would be demeaning.  If there is a God (which I hope and think there is), I believe that he loves my friend just as he is.  I'm willing to bet my soul on this.

I have since had many good friends who are gay, and my life has been considerably enriched by getting to know them. 

Don't be afraid to cross boundaries in your quest for your truth.  It will lead you down some interesting, rewarding paths.

Last thing: I believe that is the duty of heterosexuals to be vocally supportive of gay rights. This is a deal breaker for me.  Human rights include EVERYBODY, period.  Peace.

These new internet communication tools (Myspace, Facebook, etc...) tantalize us with the illusion of intimacy.  The social networking sites dangle the golden carrot of Fulfillment in front of us.  "If no one understands me", the New Logic goes "my fantasy Internet mate will."  Illusion.  Always illusion.
   What is it about the human personality that keeps thinking that Life is Elsewhere,  as Kundera says?  Why can't we accept every second as it is offered to us as is, with no illusions about the future?
   I am the guiltiest party here. I keep thinking that "something better" is coming around the corner, whereas the Task and the Glory is in taking up one's Cross and bearing graciously with the daily stuff of existence, as imperfect as it is.
   However, where would art be without yearning, without Eternal Longing?  The human being is a Paradox.

I am a proud feminist.  That is, I believe that women and men have equal rights to develop their potential to the fullest.  My mother, an extraordinary single mother taught me the importance of respecting women's particular struggles, and I am grateful for it.

The dating game is still harder for women than it is for men.  As a guy, I can approach any woman on the street or in a public place and (politely) hit on her without any fear.  As long as I am respectful, I can do this over and over again until I meet someone with whom I "click" with.  If a woman engaged in the same behavior, many uninformed men and women would consider her a "whore" or a "slut." 

Being a man, I get props by society for every attempt I make, even if I swing and miss. If a woman did this, she would be considered too "wild" or "loose", like Zora Neale Hurston's emancipated black woman protagonist in "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

Of course, this isn't an invitation for women to adopt the worst traits of men.  Recently, I found out about a Facebook group called 30 reasons a girl should call it a night.  It is full of pictures of young women passed out at parties.  The owners of the group call their stance "feminist."  I couldn't disagree more. These women are over-compensating in reaction to a society that both fetishizes their sexuality and asks them to bottle it and never acknowledge it.  Going out, partying, etc...is easy.  It's much harder to own one's sexuality without fear, but without resorting to sexually dangerous behavior.  It IS a dangerous world out there, and I wouldn't recommend sexual recklessness.

While a true feminist owns his/her own sexuality, he/she is also in control of his/her body.  This is a hard road for women to travel in order to get past the false mother/whore dichotomy. 

I am trying to figure out how to be an ally to women, while dealing with my own internal issues.  Women, in my life, have been both a gift and a challenge.  Once again, perhaps there is meaning in the struggle.\

The conviction that God doesn't exist is just as simple minded as the conviction that He (She/It) does.  You can no more prove God's Absence than you can prove God's Presence.  Those who can grasp this at a soul level, are the forgers of the new spirituality. Nietszche, a tragically misused and misunderstood philosopher, understood this. While he is famous for the aphorism, "God is Dead", what most people don't understand is that this was a terrifying prospect to Nietzsche.  He did not relish the death of the traditional religious order.  He stood  with Dostoyevsky in contemplating the scariest question of all:  "If God is dead, everything is permitted."  To lesser minds, this appears as a liberation. However, anyone paying attention realizes that this chains us to the rack of existence without a rudder.  If there is no ultimate Arbiter, where do we go for Authority?   Who gets to decide what is Good and What is Evil? We are still struggling with the same question: Is there inherent meaning and order in the universe, or are our actions futile?

When thinking of this, I consider the cell.  It is technically a biological organism/entity of it own with the power to reproduce.  I am not enough of an expert in biology to elaborate on its wondrous mechanism, but it is clear that if the cell did have a form of consciousness, it probably would not be aware of the entity called "The Body".  It doesn't mean that The Body doesn't exist.  It simply means that the cell is too small a part of the body to conceive of the overall organism.

Thus it is with humanity and God.  We are too small a part of this cosmos to be able to grasp the meaning of it all at our Human level.  But perhaps there is an ultimate meaning worked out by a higher Intelligence. 

There is much to ponder here; a lifetime's worth...

Tootin' my own horn here :).  I'm pretty proud of this piece I wrote for the Peace Newsletter.  Check it out here

As I stare at Ladies talking of Love at 2d Story

Heat plumes waft
From coffee cup
Aromatize this sulfur
Air with eccentric
Energy. Electric
Words singe the space,
Frantic language
Wets love's burn.

A Virgin named
Guadelupe fixes
Me with fruitful eyes
Eyes.  She births
A funky Grendel.

I hear music
In this conspiracy
Of friendship,
Jazz, dissonance
made meaningful.




Note: 2d Story is my favorite local bookstore and coffee hangout.

" The Serpent spoke to me
   and told me I was evil,
   and I believed I was
   until I exchanged evil for weakness
   and opened myself to life.

   I carry the imprint of Lionheart, thorn of truth."

  This beautiful passage is from the book, Sing Past Winter , from the poet Margaret Jacoby Lopez.  She wrote it during a year of great physical pain in her spine.  The central theme of her poems is that if you give in to your own vulnerability and your personal pain, instead of fighting it, you can be led on a path of deep spiritual transformation.

   This particular passage speaks to me because I used to repress the dark side of my personality.  But doing so only worsened my self esteem because I was too afraid to identify with the Shadow part of my soul.  I lived divided, trapped by the illusion of dichotomy.  There was the Good Aly, which I presented to the world, and the Evil Aly which I kept hidden, and which weighted my soul down.  Arrogant to the ways of the soul, I judged myself harshly.

   It wasn't until I learned to love and tolerate all of my personality, warts and all, that I started to soar.  Of course, I don't mean that we should give free rein to all of our impulses and desires.  That leads to just as much spiritual chaos and anarchy.  Such was the brave, but destructive path of the Marquis de Sade.  Camus discusses this in his passages on metaphysical rebellion in his terrific treatise,  The Rebel.

    What I mean is, one must learn to accept all the seasons of one's soul, all the aspects of one's personality without judgment.  In fact, I believe that your wounds are the Path to your own Salvation if you listen to what they tell you about your true, God-blessed, often tormented nature.

   A radical, compassionate, measured appreciation for all the facets of your personality, even those you don't like, can lead to a form of paradoxical strength.  In fact, acknowledging my many imperfections has given me newfound vitality and trust in the world.  As the poem states, I now carry within me " the imprint of Lionheart.  Strength and Peace only come through facing one's fears.

America is a boastful nation that flexes its muscles with an unparralleled military arsenal that no rival could possibly match.  Some say America is strong.  I say America is weak.  Only an insecure Nation-state, would produce this monstrous stockpile of weaponry.  America is like a giant lashing out at the closest weak victim, trying murderously to impose its one-sided will on the world.  It is a worldwide bully.  The thing is, bullies are always full of fear and insecurity.  Instead of dealing with their own internal problems, they victimize the nearest person they can find.

No more, however. The people of America (as opposed to the American Government) are kind, strong, and generous.  More and more people are realizing the this government does not speak for them.  It only speaks for a tiny minority of wealthy white males, terrified of their loss of grip on the population.  That is why the Elite class is trying to pass the Thought Crimes  Bill, and cracking down on everyone's civil liberties.  They are scared, and on the defensive.  They know that their outdated model of running the world based on fear, xenophobia,and deception is being unmasked.  People all over the globe are starting to wake up, and realizing that they've been sold a lie.  Eventually, the mass of the people will make this society more fair, just, and open to people of all, races, colors, and creeds.  Their system in unsustainable.  A (hopefully) nonviolent revolution of hope is inevitable.  Love always triumphs over the short-term reactionary forces of Fear. 

Whoever you are: do something positive in your community.  Join a soup kitchen.  Get to know people in homeless shelters.  Talk to the veterans of this atrocious war.  Get together in your communities. Educate yourselves. Give your children hope, by embodying hope.  Cross racial and class boundaries to get to know your neighbors.  They are your friends, your brothers, and your sisters.  Don't buy into this culture of fear that is trying to divide and conquer us.  Make the extra step to get outside of your comfortable boundaries.  There lies the only path to salvation.

Community is a struggle, but it is a struggle well worth fighting for.  Remember: all they have is their weapons, their money, and methods of repression.  You have a truth burning in your heart from Time Immemorial, and that "Truth shall set you Free."  Peace.

America is the Land of Illusion.  The corporate-controlled media filters the information that is needful for individual citizens to make up their minds on political issues.  Materialism and Consumerism have so poisoned the news media, that one needs to be an obssessive type (like myself :))  in order to get at some basic truths about reality. 

I just found out that the Democrats wrote and passed HR 1955, a bill so atrocious,it  is being dubbed the "Thought Crimes" bill by civil liberties activists (what is this 1984?), because it allows the government to spy on AND prosecute well meaning citizens who happen to dissent with the government's policies.  It is aimed at destroying so-called "extremists."  Anyone with experience about how these laws are applied knows that this means that the Federal Government wants to have the (unconstitutional) power to prosecute nonviolent activists.

We have officially crossed the Rubicon.  Of course, the corporate media is compliantly silent on this issue.  While activists and internet media sources are abuzz with info about this bill, the major news media is deafeningly silent.  This is just like the Patriot Act.  The Corporate media will be silent on the issue until AFTER this atrocious bill has passed, and then they'll play the facetious game of  "how could we have possibly known?"  Laziness, mendacity, or outright corruption?  Hard to tell.

Life is a gamble.  There are no guarantees.  There are those of us who are paralyzed by fear, and those who choose to give in to that exacting Taskmaster, Love.

Love: is hard work.  Vulnerability: is hard work.  But it takes courage to be naked, guileless in your thoughts and feelings.  One needs to be warrior-minded when it comes to Love.  Radical Love requires absolutely stripping yourself of all security and illusions of being "safe" or "cool."  You have to put yourself out there, like a lonely exclamation mark.

God rewards the "children" who lack guile.  Yet, one must be strong and cunning as well.  The balance is hard to handle.  "You must be loving; yet cunning as snakes" says the Gospel.  So it goes...

I had to fight for my self esteem.  For a long time, I was trapped by Eurocentric standard of physical beauty.  As a young man in Senegal, some of the first movies I saw were Westerns which pitted white cowboys against so-called "Indians."  All I know is that I wanted to be John Wayne, and not Tonto.  Even at the age of 6, I unconsciously swallowed the lie of white beauty and power.  The "indians" seemed backward and savage, while the white cowboys only fought for truth and justice.

The brainwashing had begun.  Hollywood did the rest.  It wasn't until I started to read about Malcolm X, our black prince, and listened to Chuck D's (from Public Enemy) fiery eloquence that I realized that I had been sold a bill of goods, the same poisonous bill that is being sold to so many of our black and brown (as well as Asian) brothers and sisters.  I started to confront my own ignorance and the soul searching was painful.

I realized that I had absorbed these alien standards of beauty.  I bought the lie that pale skin was somehow more appealing than dark skin, or that curly, nappy hair was not as beautiful as thin, straight hair.

Now, this is not a screed against my white brothers and sisters.  I still appreciate their own version of beauty, and am open to dating all races. But I needed to learn to appreciate myself, as well as my beautiful black and brown sisters.  Even my beautiful, strong African mother used to make glancing comments mocking very dark skinned blacks, and I realized that the road to self-emancipation lay through a very serious re-arranging of my esthetic priorities.

Recently, a white friend told me that she found me physically unappealing.  I value honesty above all, and while the comment stung at first, I realized that I didn't care, and that she was basing her judgment on a white supremacist system which denied the truth that there are many modes of physical beauty.  I would like to humbly suggest that her vision of beauty was constricted by the messed up society we both live in.

Fact is, I realized that I was free.  I know who I see when I look in the mirror: a strong, confident, compassionate Nubian prince.  We are all heirs of God's Eternal Beauty, and if anyone tells you otherwise, that man or woman's eyesight is limited.  Don't ever let anyone convince you that you are not worthy of love and beauty.

Maybe, just maybe, there is wisdom in the Way of the Cross.  That is, one cannot become fully oneself without enduring affliction.  Suffering, which this culture reviles, may well be the most purifying forces on the planet.  A man or woman has to experience what it means to be totally bereft of North or South, and lose all of his illusions and childish belief systems before he can find him/herself.

" A man stares at the Abyss, and sees Nothing staring right back at him.  That is when he finds his character."

Perhaps that is what is wrong with the ruling elite: they haven't been humbled by suffering.  A man born with a silver spoon in his mouth like George Bush can whine all he wants, but having never experienced the horrible face of warfare himself, he can send other people's children to the slaughter while pontificating about how little Americans are willing to sacrifice.  William Kristol, the neocon war cheerleader can smile and blithely exhort the American people to yet another confrontation with Iran, while never having experienced losing a close friend in the heat of battle

Having been bailed out by his rich daddy all of his life, GW Bush has never learned the hard humilty that experience brings to so many of us.  In a way, I feel bad for him,.  Too bad his arrogance is so dangerous and costing so many lives, however.

TS Eliot: "There is no Wisdom but Humility.  Humility is endless."

So...we had a pretty good turnout at our Syracuse youth antiwar march.  It was really inspiring to see local youth animated about the war and filled with compassion for people they didn't even know: our brothers and sisters in Iraq.  One small step for humanism and globalism in Syracuse. Truly, we' re never going to find peace in this world if we stubbornly hold on to illusions of Nationalism and Tribalism. 

While marching, I couldn't help but notice that so many people I tried to pass out flyers to were frozen in fear.  They didn't want to hear about our antiwar message because they were trapped by the prison of conformity.  It's not that they disagreed with our message; instead, I detected a hint of concern about  "making a scene". Average citizens weren't comfortable with the practice of popular democracy in a country that owes its origins to popular democracy.    What a strange paradox!?  Why are we so comfortable with silence in the face of injustice? Why do we choose the comfort of smug absolutism over struggling humanism? 

The United States is chock-full of warm hearted people who have been intimidated and/or marginalized by the mainstream media.  We must keep pushing however, and we must re-activate the hearts of those who still care about a just society, and yet are cowed by blind obedience.